Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Moly Coated bullet?

Just stopped off at Sportsman's Warehouse and bought 3 boxes of 224 V-Max bullets for a P-dog shoot this next weekend. Got home and noticed that they were Moly coated. Is there any downside to using these bullets? I never have shot any before and have never paid any attention to the Moly debates so don't have a clue if they are any good or not. Varmint bullets are really in short supply at this time of year and I feel lucky just to have found any. These were all that there was. What's your opinion?

Clean the rifle really well before using them, and really well after using them.

I think there is a downside. You'll have a time removing the black stuff from your bore. And I don't think they add a thing to accuracy or anything substantial to reducing bore wear.

"Once you go black, you can never go back" is how I feel about it. I tried them years ago, and like to never been able to clean the bore. However, nowadays, they may have developed more advanced cleaning methods.

Had it to do over, I wouldn't use them.

I've used tons of them, well maybe not, but to the tune of 20K or more a year for a number of years.

I see no downside to them and yet have run both bare and moly in the same tube without issues.

here is my somewhat educated info on them. And it somewhat is different than what folks at Sierra and others claim.... but its what I've actually seen, not read...

Doesn't extend or decrease barrel life. Doesn't increase or decrease accuracy to any degree.
It does 2 very important things for me though. One, I'm lazy, I can go an easy 500 or more shots and still retain match winning accuracy without cleaning. I try not to, but no more days of sweating of having to clean after every 88 shots... and I"ve shot the nationals without touchign the gun other than wiping the carrier down and relubing the upper...Second, it allows more speed at the same pressure via some folks that did a pressure test for me.

IE I can get to 2800 with X pressure with bare, but 2900 to X pressure with coated. Is 100 fps important enough? You have to call that one, but in my game, winning is often by an X or a point and most times you loose those by literally less than an inch in a string of 20, and that extra 100 fps or better BC etc... can save the one shot....

Your call, but I sure have not seen an issue going from moly to bare in any barrels, clean is relative, and as a function my portion of clean is clean it any decent way and then does it shoot? If so I don't care what it actually 'looks' like, but how it performs on paper. Of course that might be to simple of a way to look at it for some.

Oh yeah, IIRC you can wipe them with with that orange hand cleaning compound and it should wipe all the moly right off and take it out of the barrel.

The wax protective might have to be polished off a bit though if you want to get rid of it, I'd put it in clean corn cob, polish for an hour or two, then put in clean cob with the orange hand stuff mixed in and polish a bit, then one more time with clean cob and you are back to normal.

I run molly in units that typically reach or exceed 3,500fps. Some JP paste on a 1 caliber smaller brush that is wrapped with a cloth patch, will have it out in about 60 seconds. Go forth and play.

As to its effects..... I don't have copper fouling issues anymore in my hotrod units. I'm not aware of any definitive science on it's long term effects in gun barrels. I'd love to do the work, but would need about a quarter million for equipment and lunch money.

JB is probably why I don't see issues..

I'd like to see the results of a scientific test which concluded that you can get more velocity at the same pressure.

The only scientific results I've ever seen, published in a book called "Rifle Accuracy Facts" that "Precision Shooting" magazine publishes, coucluded that the only effect of moly is to REDUCE velocity because some of the heat from the powder is used to vaporize the moly on the barrel walls, which then condenses back onto the walls. You have to increase the powder charge in order to get back up to your starting velocity.

One problem with moly, reported by a number of shooters, is that after you clean the barrel the zero does not settle in until you shoot 10 or so shots with moly bullets and re-establish the moly in the bore.

If you want to buy bullets, try buying them from Cabela's or Midway by mail.

I take the barrel down to bare metal with JB before I start running moly. No problems thus far in the 7 rifles I've shot with the stuff. I like not having to clean all the time. If I hunt wet weather, I pop a fouler round when I get back to the truck. No more wet bore.

My barrets have coated with Ultra Bore Coat and have no idea what effect that would have on cleaning. I think I will put them in my rotory tumbler and remove as much moly as I can, then load them up and go shoot some p-dogs and not worry about it. Thanks for your replies.

Doug at Ultra Bore Coatings has told me that with UBC you can shoot moly and non-moly interchangeably. IME I have found this to be the case as well.

With a given load I typically get about a 5% decrease in velocity with the addition of moly. That is likely due to a decrease in pressure. A little more powder can recover the lost velocity and that is probably caused by getting ones pressure back up.

As to shooting moly into a barrel, I'd not attempt that. Moly thickness on a bullet is probably on the order of microns. The first slug would lay moly down for maybe half an inch and copper thereafter. Subsequent slugs could probably moly up the barrel, but the layer would sit on top of a good layer of copper.

Coat a clean barrel with moly bore prep before firing any slugs. A little powdered moly in a few drops of oil would accomplish the same thing. One should moly the barrel and avoid coating his chamber.